November 25, 2024
BC Ferries has just announced, via a conference call with Ferry Advisory Committee members, that they are terminating the FAC process. It appears that they are planning, instead, to rely more on (primarily digital) input received directly from community members, although FAC members are being asked to work with BCF between now and April 2025 to help them design how communities will be engaged in the future.
BC Ferries claim that they have heard that coastal residents want to be able to communicate directly with the corporation, although they don’t seem to have asked clearly if people actually want the FACs to be scrapped. If you think that the FAC system has been of value in working with BC Ferries, and would like to see it continue, please make your views known by emailing:
Morningstar.Pinto@bcferries.com (Executive Director of External Relations)
nicolas.jimenez@bcferries.com (CEO)
lindsay.matthews@bcferries.com (Vice President, Public Affairs)
info@bcferryauthority.com BC Ferry Authority
Minister.MOTI@gov.bc.ca Mike Farnworth, Minister of Transportation and Transit
info@bcferrycommission.ca Office of the BC Ferry Commission
The BC Ferries Press Release can be found here. https://www.bcferries.com/news-release/a-new-partnership-process-to-enhance-the-future-of-ferry-system-engagement
It is worth noting that this was a decision delivered with no warning and arrived at entirely by BC Ferries management, without the input of the Ferry Advisory Committees or their Chairs, all of whom are volunteers who have invested hundreds, or in many cases thousands of hours in serving their respective communities.
We definitely DO need a FAC to advocate for our community!
It is no surprise or coincidence that this comes at a time when BC Ferries is attracting a lot of criticism for its top heavy management structure and poor service.
The work Gabriola FAC does is fantastic and deeply appreciated by commuters like me, who rely on the ferry for our livelihood. Workers who commute off Island bring the wages we earn back to our community and spend it here in property taxes, and at our small island businesses, which helps support our community.
It is an enormous blow to lose our GFAC, as without you, we have no community voice, and if service continues to decline, our community will also suffer.🙁
I wonder how other small islands are reacting to this?
Just one more confirmation that BCF is more concerned with the bottom line than in servicing a community. I fear that individuals calling BCF would get nothing but a stock reply. I wonder if they would consider a system whereby anyone with a beef, register it with FAC who then can collect them in categories and then send them to BCF?
FYI, the BC Ferries press release about this, which gives some of their reasons for the change, is at this link: https://www.bcferries.com/news-release/a-new-partnership-process-to-enhance-the-future-of-ferry-system-engagement
I believe this is called Bullying ….
Very similiar to a dictatorship: seize control of the media, the un-popular opinion and re-invent yourself
Very discouraging news from BC Ferries… no notice just scrap a valuable communication tool?
Corporate dictators….
BC Ferries has a poor track record of communication with local residents on the smaller islands. To do away with the locally managed, staffed with volunteers current system will only further increase BC Ferries’ inability to communicate successfully. This recommendation sounds like and probably is a further attempt by the large, unresponsive corporation to eliminate and silence the voice of a further attempt by the large, unresponsive corporation to eliminate and silence the voice of users. I strongly disagree with this change as it will only make everything worse.
I sent this to the BCFC.
I am disappointed to hear BCFC will be dissolving the FACs for an unclear (so far) alternate method of public engagement.
My experiences with our local FAC (Gabriola) have been positive. I have observed that, even when an action is agreed upon and supported, it has taken significant follow-up to have the action implemented by BCFC. There are many reasons given – change of manager, reassignment of responsibilities, “slipped our mind”, “oh, was that not done?”, and others.
The manner in which this announcement was made, without even the courtesy of discussion, shows BCFC’s lack of commitment to communications.
So, when it has proven so difficult to have BCFC listen to FACs and follow up, how will BCFC listen to many individuals? At least the FAC acted as a filter, keeping frivolous and vexatious matters from BCFC.
Please reconsider this action of dissolving FACs.